When I’m trying to teach my students how to use any kind of ed tech, I inevitably have to put together some kind of tutorial to walk them through the process. I spent a lot of time taking screenshots, typing instructions, and organizing it into an easy-to-follow tutorial. It took a long time. That is until I found a new Chrome extension called iorad that will do all of this for you. Here’s a quick look at iorad.
What does it do?
Iorad will basically take your browser or desktop and take screenshots and directions as you complete the process yourself. It’ll capture everything as you do it. Then, it creates the tutorial for you with steps and screenshots. Once complete, there are three modes: Try, View, and PDF. Try will literally have the person click through and follow the directions, View shows them all the steps and screenshots, PDF creates a printable PDF version.
Highlights
Iorad has several great features to it:
- Click and go – click through your process and iorad records the tutorial for you
- Export and download – being able to export to a PDF makes it super easy to make reproducible tutorials
- Web and desktop – there’s a web version Chrome extension to use for web sites and a desktop download for the rest of your computer
- Making feature – blur out sensitive information
- Audio feature – add auto-generated audio for each step, or record your own
- Share & Embed – share a link to the tutorial or embed it to a web page
Classroom Uses
The most obvious application of this in the classroom is to create tutorials for your students to help them with anything in class that involves them following multiple steps. This could also be a useful tool for students to create. If you want to know if students know how to complete a task, students can create tutorials as a way of communicating what they understand about a task.
In short, I think iorad is a great tool to use in class for students and teachers. It’s a great time saver. Check it out and let me know what other uses you’ve found for it.
The Educator's Quest 